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Hmmm yes but anime is a something like a world created for the common man to escape to, so while this sort of love cannot exist in real life, it does make nostalgic plot points.

But rather what I really mean was to let the viewer acknowledge that Ryuji and Taiga would go into a relationship, but whether they get all raunchy and stuff or just be each others' most important person would be up to the viewer's interpretation. This way, no blame can be attached for ambiguity and it leads to some healthy conflict between views about their future at the end.

My point is that the author is trying too hard to force the couple thing on us if all she wants is the spiritual bond, then bringing the couple and physical elements in it is not good thing and definitely not as a climax.

If she wants to make a mix and it to be a real love then she has to build up the physical part bit more. Right now she just focused and spiritual bond, thus making them into couple looks forced and useless as it pays no real role in there.

This is what got me confused, if it really is like houkoholic says and the issue here is the spiritual bond then being a couple or not should not be a problem, yet it is becoming like a climax thing in the series. Which is forcing things too much, juts like Taiga being unhappy when Ryuuji getting closer to Minori.

As soul buddies it should not matter who is with whom, if they are a couple or not. If they are a couple then they have to have some physical relationship in it or else we are bond to see an dysfunctional couple that is not really in love with each other.

I guess it feels like watching a video with guy crossing a street and a huge truck going right at him, with only one meter left, the camera stops and asks you to imagine that the guy survived and had a 'happily after'.

While we do not see an actual death, and cannot be sad about it, it is also feeling that the guy still died as simply it is impossible to survive unless some incredible miracle happens...

Thats how the Taiga and Ryuuji relationship would feel to me if it would end the way houkoholic suggests. It would not show us them breaking as couple but from what we see it is very easy to picture their relationship as a couple (not as friends though) being doomed.

Yes, they are implicit comparisons. I very much agree with what you're driving at though. It just doesn't seem appropriate to end the series having Taiga and Ryuji not become literally in love, but still having that kind of "soulmates and companions" relationship. An appropriate ending IMHO would be an all out announcement of love from Taiga to Ryuji, or no one ends up with anybody, but everyone becomes more mature and wise.

The perfect ending for me would be somewhat a borrowed concept from H&C. There would be a flashback to the starting message on the first episode after the final climax is resolved. Taiga would give Ryuji a kiss or a hug, signaling their relationship, and after a dialogue between the two (with reference to that message), the last episode ends. I cross my fingers there won't be an epilogue episode.

Yes, wist, this is the point I was trying to bring across. Thats why for me ending it without physical relationship build up is off as the climax seems to be based on this rather than on spiritual bond, but bringing them as a couple without any physical affections moments would leave them pretty much dysfunctional as a couple without future. As love is not a progression (as some sort of game where you level up) and spiritual bond is not an ultimate form of love, but just part of loving and not higher or lower than physical part. Empathisizing only one part and still try to bring them together as a couple leaves such relationship under a very very big question.

If, yet the point is just a spiritual bond then then ending them as couple would be pointless (and would make the whole noise in volume 8 and volume 9 about it useless as it is based mostly on physical closeness, wanting to have a person for oneself, and feeling uncomfortable when another gets closer to the object of your affections, which is not really part of spiritual bond but more of emotions that follow physical relationship, as in being a couple).

I think Darknemo2000 hit the nail on the head here. Reading the last 2 pages of this thread brought back memories of the Lacus/Kira relationship. The scriptwriter claimed that both of them had already gone beyond the physical aspect, but skipping it just made most viewers feel that something was missing.

I think Darknemo2000 hit the nail on the head here. Reading the last 2 pages of this thread brought back memories of the Lacus/Kira relationship. The scriptwriter claimed that both of them had already gone beyond the physical aspect, but skipping it just made most viewers feel that something was missing.

Worst comparison EVAR?

SEED probably never actually spent more than a single episode's worth of time developing the spiritual bonding between Lacus/Kira, whereas the *entire show* of ToraDora does that for Ryuji and Taiga. The poor coupling of Lacus/Kira is not because of the lack of physical contact but due to poor writing which skipped on every aspect of relationship development itself, both physically and mentally. ToraDora doesn't have this problem on their mental bonding, not a single bit.

Again like I said, look at the Clannad Tomoya/Nagisa pairing, that is much closer to what Ryuji and Taiga has and very little people questions Tomoya and Nagisa's feelings for each other. In fact the complains people have with Tomoya/Nagisa is exactly the same here with Ryuji/Taiga. They complained that Tomoya/Nagisa hasn't even kissed yet and they're getting married - the same reasoning for Ryuji/Taiga hasn't done anything physical touching to show their affection. Both shows are showing, and had gone to *great* lengths to show the same thing here, the couple's experience and understanding of each other is far more important than showing touching or kissing or such display of affection through physical means - and it's not like they think it is irrelevant (both show still show the occasional blush, holding hands, sharing intimate moments now and there), but clearly the people behind both shows thinks that physically showing affection simply pales in light of the emotional bonding they share. We have mountains of scenes, episodes, literally hours of stories dedicated solely to how they open up to each other and what lengths each other would do for the people they love in Clannad and ToraDora, and if you still think that the Kira/Lacus example is a valid comparison than I really suggest you need to re-watch the shows.

Darknemo is actually missing the point completely IMO and is forcing his own outlook on the relationship onto the story, of which the author had clearly show she doesn't share the same POV with in her writing in ToraDora.

The anime never reproduce the scene of their first kiss which was actually in a park when the entire Furukawa family along with Tomoya were out on a picnic. In fact the anime actually *took out* a lot of their physical contacts. For example the confession between Tomoya and Nagisa in the game was actually at the point where Nagisa was waiting for Tomoya outside in the rain and Tomoya hugs Nagisa from behind and confessed, which of course never even happened in the anime. The game Tomoya is also a bit more aggressive in his physical approach (he wants a lot more physical contact for comfort of knowing his love is there besides him, which is especially apparent in the Tomoyo and Nagisa arcs), which they pretty much just took out completely in the anime thus far to emphasis the pureness of their emotional bonding.

If it was Lacus/Kira, they probably kissed somewhere in Destiny. But because their relationship was under-developed *as a whole*, it didn't make sense. Again it is not because of a lack of them showing physical affection but overall poor writing.

It's actually pretty cliche moment in love comedy movies too when the head-butting couples don't kiss until the last scene in a dramatic moment to signify they "officially" become a couple after a lot of mishaps and misunderstanding but the audience already knew from the many scenes before that the couple have mentally bonded far more than what they show on the superficial (physical) level. ToraDora falls squarely into this category.

I guess it feels like watching a video with guy crossing a street and a huge truck going right at him, with only one meter left, the camera stops and asks you to imagine that the guy survived and had a 'happily after'.

While we do not see an actual death, and cannot be sad about it, it is also feeling that the guy still died as simply it is impossible to survive unless some incredible miracle happens...

Thats why Clannad love and Toradora love is exploring a dysfunctional couple. Thats simply do not have a happy future together.

houkoholic, unless you are one of those idealists and think that body is bad/lower than mind, you have to admit that both parts are equally important in a relationship.

Clannad (anime not original as in original it had a good amount of physical relationship) and Toradora authors are obviously dreamers that either do not know what earthly relationship means or simply ignores that so that could show up a dysfunctional relationship.

If you want to show us true love then you have to show both sides of relationship, if you focus on one side then you are not showing a true love, nor true romance, you are just creating something totally unrealistic.

Sometimes it is good to stop living in poetry books and look around. houkoholic, have you been in a relationship? Not the school time crush but a real relationship with someone? If so, then how can you say that the author is talking about love? Authors of Toradora and Clannad are not talking about love. They are talking about Utopia and not love. A love cannot be without both of its sides. And one cannot be be considered lower and another higher, love is an equal mix of both.

I am really surprised how anyone who has been in a relationship (a real relationship) can actually be protecting or believing in such fairy-tales.

You don't have to be a philosopher or anything, you just have to look at the relationship you and your only have to understand that Clannad anime and Toradora are just fairy-tails and that what they show is is not love. I would be really scared if the authors would actually believe in such relationship...

Well I am talking from my own experience. When I was 13 year old I too believed that spiritual closeness is what you need in love and that it would be love regardless... That is until I really become close with someone and understood that such thing is just a fairy-tale. Real love has both, and has to have both to be what it is. A platonic love, based just on spiritual companionship is only possible between two non-human/non-material beings and in books. Thats all, thats why I would like to see Toradora telling about love but it seems, if you are right it, despite having such deep characters, is not telling a story of love, but just another fairy-tale that only loners can believe in.

It is like loving a person, but because you like his upper part, you cut him into two and drag with you his upper part (more noble parts like head or heart, leaving...less noble parts there) but in the end whichever body half you choose it will still be a corpse you are dragging around.

If it would be just about spiritual companionship then Taiga would never be sad about Ryuuji getting closer to Minori and that would have not been an issue, this is why I assumed that they are going to explore some part of physical relationship to finally show love between the two, but seems like I have been mistaken. This anime is not about love. Just about fairy-tail substitute. It is not about just spiritual bond since then they would not need to be a couple at all (and the whole issue between Taiga and Ryuuji would have never been an issue). It is a story about fake, beautiful fake, but still fake relationship.

I guess anime is a lot about fake things isn't it? It is escapism from reality after all, but sometimes it creates a nice mix of both.

It is not necessarily the sex really, but actual physical closeness. A love has to have it and i feel that in Toradora it is abandoned in favor of a spiritual connection. But in truth there just cannot be one higher and one lower in love, they both go hand in hand as long as it is love.

One volume would be good enough if they start working on it but since there are also other issues left thats why I am saying that it would be better if it would go to 11 volumes rather than 10.

I'm always feel like the authors of this kind of series don't really know how to make the actual relationship after the chase as compelling as the chase itself so they just avoid it. I'm expecting the series at best to end with them kissing and a time jump epilogue.

yeah, typhonsentra, thats probably how it will be. Meaning that we will never see an actual love between the two. More like build up to it, but even then, when important link (physical relationship) is missing you can hardly imagine it being a build up as simply love is not progression where it evolves from one type into another - it is a constant mix of them both and when one part of the mix is missing, it gets pretty hard to imagine them as a couple.

There is one way how such animes compensate the lack of physical relationship. I call it partner perception. Basivcally the do percieve each other as source of attraction (like Jin for Nagi from Kannagi) and this creates an illusion that there is some sort of romantic development though actually physically they are pretty far.

In Toradora such perception from both leads really come into play at the end of volume 7 and volume 8, so they cannot even offer this. You have to compensate it by interpretations but those can be rather vague...

Series like REC and Lovely*Complex (or H&C) give me some hope for "after confession" when the "real adventure" starts: the trials of staying together.

I was going to say a lot about physical love versus platonic love -- but its a false dichotomy. Human beings are one inseparable entity. You love the way she smiles and her eyes glitter -- platonic or physical? The answer is both. Then of course, one has to nit about what *kind* of love.... (stupid language limitations).

Taiga wriggling her feet on Ryuuji's back spoke volumes more than a simple kiss -- though they're both mentally dancing around the issue even then. I'd like to see the author *try* to tell tales after any epiphany (for these two, its an epiphany more than a confession) simply because I'd like to see more authors challenge themselves this way. That might take a few more books...

SEED probably never actually spent more than a single episode's worth of time developing the spiritual bonding between Lacus/Kira, whereas the *entire show* of ToraDora does that for Ryuji and Taiga. The poor coupling of Lacus/Kira is not because of the lack of physical contact but due to poor writing which skipped on every aspect of relationship development itself, both physically and mentally. ToraDora doesn't have this problem on their mental bonding, not a single bit.

Again like I said, look at the Clannad Tomoya/Nagisa pairing, that is much closer to what Ryuji and Taiga has and very little people questions Tomoya and Nagisa's feelings for each other. In fact the complains people have with Tomoya/Nagisa is exactly the same here with Ryuji/Taiga. They complained that Tomoya/Nagisa hasn't even kissed yet and they're getting married - the same reasoning for Ryuji/Taiga hasn't done anything physical touching to show their affection. Both shows are showing, and had gone to *great* lengths to show the same thing here, the couple's experience and understanding of each other is far more important than showing touching or kissing or such display of affection through physical means - and it's not like they think it is irrelevant (both show still show the occasional blush, holding hands, sharing intimate moments now and there), but clearly the people behind both shows thinks that physically showing affection simply pales in light of the emotional bonding they share. We have mountains of scenes, episodes, literally hours of stories dedicated solely to how they open up to each other and what lengths each other would do for the people they love in Clannad and ToraDora, and if you still think that the Kira/Lacus example is a valid comparison than I really suggest you need to re-watch the shows.

Darknemo is actually missing the point completely IMO and is forcing his own outlook on the relationship onto the story, of which the author had clearly show she doesn't share the same POV with in her writing in ToraDora.

Actually, my point was less of a comparison about the content of the shows, but more along the lines of fan reactions, where the lack of the physical aspect leaves viewers with the perception that something is missing. I agree that romance was not a major part of SEED, but the main gripe of the shippers, who have taken that into account, is the lack of physical closeness. However, I'll concede that Clannad is a better comparison.

Darknemo's argument, I believe, is not about what the author of ToraDora! is going to do, but whether it would be a satisfactory ending. The author may not necessarily include a physical relationship between Ryuuji and Taiga, and this might be off-topic, but I believe it would make a better story if she does so.